Rock's Greats Line Up For A Gig For The Ages (Or Aged)

                                                                

                                                                  

It is a festival line-up that might have relegated Woodstock to a footnote in history if promoters had managed to put it together 40 years ago.

The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, The Who, Neil Young and Roger ­Waters from Pink Floyd are all being lined up for a three-day rock spectacular in the California desert in October. Negotiations between the six headline acts and the organisers of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival are said to be nearly complete and an announcement is expected soon.

“It’s so special in so many ways,” Elliot Roberts, Young’s manager, told the Los Angeles Times. “You won’t get a chance to see a bill like this, perhaps ever again.”

The regular Coachella festival took place at the weekend and featured a headline slot for the reunited Guns N’ Roses. It has become the best attended and highest-grossing music festival in the world, taking £60 million last year, and has previously hosted McCartney and Waters. The one-off festival, pencilled in for October 7 to 9, would be staged by Goldenvoice, an offshoot of AEG Live, which owns the O2 Arena in London.

Of the Coachella acts, only The Who and Young played in 1969 at Woodstock, which became a symbol of optimism and the power of rock music.

With many thanks to The Australian 
                                                                 

Some related posts:

Posts on The Rolling Stones can be found here.

Posts on The Beatles can be found here.

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How Computer Program Eugene Passed The Human ‘Turing Test’

                                                                        

In 1950 Alan Turing, the pioneer of computing, made one of the most famous predictions in modern science. By the year 2000, he forecast, a machine would need only five minutes to fool one in three “average interrogators” into mistaking it for a human being. 

  In the end it took 14 years longer than Turing expected, but last year “Eugene” — a Russian computer program purporting to be a 13-year-old boy from Odessa in Ukraine — was claimed to have passed the test.

Transcripts published this week show how he bamboozled 10 of the 30 judges at the Royal Society through a mixture of scattiness, bad manners and worse humour — but they have also led to allegations that the test is little more than a pointless “magic trick” based on a misunderstanding of Turing’s work.

Professor Gary Marcus, an expert on language and the mind at New York University, called Eugene’s achievement “a meaningless victory — an exercise in evasion rather than intelligence” and said the program was no more sophisticated than Siri, the voice-activated electronic assistant developed by Apple.

Stevan Harnad, professor of computer science at the University of Southampton, said that fooling a third of the judges in a brief exchange of words was not the Turing test but simply a “benchmark” of progress in artificial intelligence.

The real proof would be a machine that could convincingly imitate a human over years or decades, much like Samantha, the operating system that becomes the unlikely love interest in the 2013 film Her.

“Design a system that can do anything a human can do, indistinguishably from the way any human does, to any human, and you will have explained how the mind works,” Professor Harnad said. “It’s not about fooling 30 per cent of judges for five minutes, any more than Newton’s Law is about predicting what 30 per cent of colliding billiard balls will do for five minutes.”

Kevin Warwick, deputy vice-chancellor for research at Coventry University and one of the country’s leading experts on cybernetics, who organised and analysed the conversations, insisted that Turing’s formulation was still a good way of measuring machine intelligence, but said that a ten or 15-minute test might give a better indication of an AI’s capacity for fooling people.

The judges held two simultaneous conversations on side-by-side screens for five minutes. When the time was up, they had to decide whether each of their interviewees was a human or a computer.

The transcripts reveal that Eugene’s conversation is littered with attempts at humour and incidental detail. From references to his favourite film — Naked Gun — to gobbets of low-budget wisdom — “Sanity and insanity complement each other in our complicated life” — the computer often comes across as a more colourful character than the humans he was up against.

During a bizarre exchange about Jim Carrey films, he jocularly attempted to recruit the judge into a campaign to destroy other AIs. “If I’m not mistaken, Carrey is a robot,” he said. “Just as many other ‘people’ — we must destroy the plans of these talking trash-cans!”

He was even better equipped for talking about the weather than a native Briton. In what Professor Warwick described as a “relatively lame conversation”, one judge asked a human about the rain outside. “Yeee, very gloomy indeed,” he replied.

Eugene, however, hit back with: “The weather is always as bad as you think it is. I do believe that the world just a mare (sic) reflection of our thoughts.”

John Barnden, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Birmingham, said the transcripts showed Turing might have underestimated the “incoherence, triviality and oddness” of much human conversation.

“A lot of conversation in real life has no strong informational or other ‘serious’ aim, and is just a superficial means of being social or of just keeping the conversation going because the silence is embarrassing,” he said.

Professor Barnden said that although the Royal Society test was “a reasonably good match” for Turing’s thought experiment, a five-minute conversation was not a useful test of whether a machine could “think” or not.

By Oliver Moody

With many thanks to The Australian

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Do You See Albert Einstein Or Marilyn Monroe In This Photo?

                                                                      

Do you see an image of Albert Einstein or Marilyn Monroe in the video above? If you see Einstein, congratulations, your eyesight is pretty good. But if you see Marilyn, well, we hate to be the ones to tell you this, but you may need contact lenses or glasses.

So what is this witchcraft? 

And why do some people swear it's a photo of Marilyn while others are as sure they only see Einstein as they are that The Dress was white and gold.

                                                             

As the team from AsapSCIENCE explain, this is what's called a hybrid image - so it actually contains a low spatial frequency image of Marilyn and a high spatial frequency image of Einstein merged together.

When we're close to the screen or have super eyesight, our eyes are able to pick up the details of an image, such as Einstein's moustache and wrinkles. But when we're further away from the screen, or if our eyesight isn't great, our eyes only process the broad strokes of an image, like Marilyn's hair and smile.

Seriously, you can try this right now but walking away from the screen (or moving it further from your face if you're on a mobile). Or take your glasses off and take another look. At a certain point, Einstein will transform into Marilyn right in front of your eyes - no Photoshop involved.
It's somewhat of a disconcerting transformation, but it actually reveals quite a lot about the fascinating way our brain processes images. 
Watch the video to find out more, and watch more of AsapSCIENCE's favourite optical illusions.

By Fiona McDonald

Source: AsapSCIENCE

With many thanks to Science Alert 


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The Musketeers - The BBC's Post-Medieval Mini-Series

                                                                 

Although it will be hard for me to find a medieval mini-series I enjoyed as much as The 'Borgias'  this is definitely coming close.

Sadly 'The Borgias' was never completed - much to my disappointment.

Whilst I think many mini-series use a lot of poetic licence they are still fun to watch, even if not totally accurate. That's what entertainment is after all, and I have always enjoyed historical or costume dramas.

"The Musketeers" has a slightly modern edge to it. The costumes for example. I doubt they were all dressed in leathers but who will ever know for sure?

This is an extended and enhanced version of Alexandre Dumas' novel which many of us have not only read, but seen many movie versions of it like the ones with Gene Kelly and Oliver Reed. 

I think it's worth watching, and the opening theme is great!

I also like the sword-fighting scenes so I have put a montage of some very famous filmed duels below.

Interestingly enough some members of my extended family are direct descendents of Dumas.
                                                               

BBC AMERICA’s new co-production drama series, The Musketeers, is set on the streets of seventeenth century Paris, where law and order is an idea more than a reality. In addition to being King Louis XIII’s personal bodyguards, Athos, Aramis and Porthos stand resolutely for social justice, honor, valor, love – and for the thrill of it. 

Luke Pasqualino (Skins, The Borgias) stars as D’Artagnan alongside Tom Burke (Great Expectations, The Hour,War and Peace) as Athos, Santiago Cabrera (Merlin, Heroes) as Aramis and Howard Charles (Royal Shakespeare Company) as Porthos. 

Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who, The Hour, The Thick Of It), Maimie McCoy (Loving Miss Hatto), Tamla Kari (Cuckoo, The Inbetweeners Movie) and Hugo Speer (Bedlam) also star in the 10-part series created by Adrian Hodges (My Week With Marilyn, Primeval). 

D’Artagnan:                                                          

D’Artagnan is charismatic, impulsive and ridiculously brave with a fierce appetite for justice. A skilled fighter from rural Gascony, meets the three Musketeers while on a mission to right the wrong of his father’s death. Although he meets the men in unfortunate circumstances, he finds kindred spirits in the other soldiers.

                                                            
Porthos: 
Porthos is a great fighter, a loyal friend and a man who lives life to the full. He  is a larger-than-life character, who has come from humble beginnings to become a soldier in the most elite regiment in the land, finding a family in the other Musketeers.
                                                                      

Constance Bonacieux (Tamla Kari) leads a dull but comfortable life married to a cloth merchant, but her life is turned upside down when D’Artagnan tumbles into her world, and she becomes involved with the Musketeers.

Cardinal Richelieu (Peter Capaldi), while striving to achieve his vision of a thoroughly modern France, is a shadowy character who will stop at nothing to achieve his objectives. Milady (Maimie McCoy) is the Cardinal’s secret weapon, the most mysterious and beautiful of villains whose motives are often concealed.

The King relies on the advice of the Cardinal, his shrewd wife Queen Anne and also Captain Treville (Hugo Speer), the brave and respected commander of the Musketeers who keeps an eye on the soldiers to ensure they stay out of trouble. 

The series bursts with escapism, adventure and romance and is set to thrill audiences with riveting stories every week.

Athos:
Athos is brave, resourceful and a natural leader of men. But he nurses a dark secret in his past. Athos, who has rejected his noble roots to become a Musketeer, quickly befriends D’Artagnan, but has a past which is shrouded in mystery, and is prone to getting in trouble.
                                                                    

Aramis:
Aramis is charming but deadly, a great lover and a great fighter – Aramis is a man of fascinating contrasts.  Never short of admirers, Aramis has an effortless charm which leads him in and out of love. Despite this, he is a shrewd pragmatist who is ferocious in battle and commands a key place in the brotherhood.


                                                               

From BBC America 

Series cast summary from IMDB:
Howard Charles ... Porthos (11 episodes, 2014-2015)
Ryan Gage ... King Louis (11 episodes, 2014-2015)    
Luke Pasqualino ... D'Artagnan (10 episodes, 2014)   - also in "The Borgias"
Santiago Cabrera ... Aramis (10 episodes, 2014)
Tom Burke... Athos (10 episodes, 2014)    - also in "War and Peace".
Peter Capaldi...Cardinal Richelieu (10 episodes, 2014)    
Hugo Speer...Treville (10 episodes, 2014-2015)   
Tamla Kari...Constance (9 episodes, 2014-2015)   
Alexandra Dowling ... Queen Anne  ... (8 episodes, 2014-2015)     
Maimie McCoy...Milady (8 episodes, 2014-2015)  - also in "Loving Miss Hatto"

                                                                     

Above: Picture with thanks to Images123

                                                                     

There are quite a few of my favourite swash-buckling movies in this clip.
The list is here. 

It is generally accepted that possibly the best ever duel is the one with Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer from the film, "Scaramouche", and Basil Rathbone was considered an expert fencer, but there is plenty here for younger viewers too!

Series 2 commencing January 2015 - looking forward to it! 
Series 3 commencing August 2016.  This is the final series.

                                                                 

First picture Credit: Foxtel
                                                         

                                                                     

                                                                           

                                                                   

                                                                    

                                                                      

Above -  picture credit:Gallery Hip

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